Knysna bloodbath: Ex-councillor, taxi boss shot dead day after former mayor killed

Police are hunting the gunmen who shot dead two men in a vehicle in Bongani, Knysna, on Thursday night

A former Knysna councillor and the taxi boss acquitted of plotting the assassination of ANC councillor Victor Molosi were shot dead on Thursday night.

Mandla Matiwane and Mandla Tyololo were killed in Bongani a day after ward 8 councillor and former mayor Aubrey Tsengwa was gunned down in his car in Joodsekamp.

Police spokesperson Brigadier Novela Potelwa said the two men, aged 47 and 48, were in a vehicle in Bongani when gunmen opened fire on them at about 9pm.

Potelwa said detectives from the provincial serious violent crime unit had launched a manhunt and were also looking at whether the two shootings were connected.

"The provincial serious violent crimes detective team that had been investigating another shooting incident in the area that had occurred on Wednesday evening involving a councillor in the area, has since been reinforced," Potelwa said.

"The motive for both shootings remains the subject of the police investigation."

Matiwane won ward 7 for the ANC in the 2016 local government elections and served on the Knysna council.

The two men stood on opposite sides of the case that followed Molosi's murder.

Molosi, the ANC's ward 8 councillor and its Knysna mayoral candidate, was shot in the head outside his Concordia home in July 2018 as he walked away from a school governing body meeting.

Tyololo was arrested weeks later and charged with conspiring to have him killed.

He spent more than two years in custody before the Knysna Regional Court acquitted him on August 25, 2020.

He testified he and Tyololo had contested an ANC ward committee position in 2016 but had stayed on good terms, and that his own relationship with Molosi had soured after Molosi accused him of wanting him dead.

Matiwane also wrote to the court opposing Tyololo's release on bail, saying it would put peace in the community at risk.